OpenRiot v7.9.15 — The One Where You Could See It Working

“The packages were installing. The terminal just didn’t believe it.” — The OpenRiot Crew, watching a braille spinner blink for forty minutes.

Release Overview

v7.9.15 makes long installs visible, brings more wallpapers, syncs the documentation with reality, and fixes firmware download 404s that blocked make image.

Make Install Visible Again

Zero A.D. takes over 30 minutes to install. The previous 5-minute heartbeat message was invisible in practice, and pkg_add stayed silent because the child process had no TTY.

The fix: pass os.Stdin so pkg_add sees a TTY, and replace the heartbeat with a braille spinner that prints a new [INFO] line every 5 seconds with elapsed time in (02m 30s elapsed) format. The user always knows something is happening.

File	Change
`source/installer/packages.go`	cmd.Stdin for TTY; braille
	spinner with MM:SS elapsed time

More Wallpapers & Lock Screens

Ten new lock screen images and six new background images ship with this release.

File	Change
`Locked/43.webp` — `Locked/52.webp`	NEW — 10 lock screens
`backgrounds/19.webp` —	NEW — 6 backgrounds
`backgrounds/24.webp`

Fix `make image`

Two issues blocked fresh install image builds:

Makefile image: had no build dependency and ran a stale binary.
Firmware downloads used the bare name from packages.yaml (e.g. iwm) while the server serves .tgz files (e.g. iwm.tgz), causing 404 errors.

File	Change
`Makefile`	`image: all` rebuilds binary first
`source/imaging/download.go`	Append `.tgz` to firmware URL

README Refresh

The README had significant drift:

Laptop tables stripped adapter names from the WiFi column.
Polybar module reference table rebuilt from config.ini.tmpl and source code: correct launcher icon, volume thresholds, network-eth states, battery colors, the nzbget module, and crypto/transmission click actions.
TOC links fixed (duplicate sentences removed, correct anchors).
New 🎮 Games section with assets/games.webp.
Donate badge moved to the top of the page.

File	Change
`README.md`	Laptop table cleanup; polybar table
	rebuilt; TOC fix; games section

Cromag Rally

New game: cromagrally added to the optional games package list and rofi games menu.

File	Change
`install/packages.yaml`	Added `cromagrally-3.0.1`
`config/rofi/games.txt`	Added Cromag Rally entry

WebP Converter

openriot --convert-webp now converts assets/*.png in addition to backgrounds/ and Locked/, and removes the original .png files after successful conversion.

File	Change
`source/imaging/webp.go`	Added `assets/` dir; remove PNG
	files after conversion

🧾 Files Changed

File	Change
`source/installer/packages.go`	cmd.Stdin; braille spinner
	with MM:SS elapsed time
`source/imaging/download.go`	Append `.tgz` to firmware URL
`source/imaging/webp.go`	`assets/` dir; remove PNG after
	conversion
`Makefile`	`image: all` rebuilds first
`README.md`	Laptop table; polybar table;
	TOC fix; games section
`install/packages.yaml`	Added `cromagrally-3.0.1`
`config/rofi/games.txt`	Added Cromag Rally entry
`assets/games.webp`	NEW — games menu screenshot
`Locked/43.webp` —	NEW — 10 lock screens
`Locked/52.webp`
`backgrounds/19.webp` —	NEW — 6 backgrounds
`backgrounds/24.webp`
`assets/menu.webp`	Re-encoded
`assets/qr-code.webp`	Re-encoded

🗣️ Final Words

“v7.9.14 made sure your desktop wasn’t a void. v7.9.15 makes sure you can watch the void fill itself.”

Ship it.